As our David Aldridge pointed out in his Morning Tip yesterday, the defending-champion Cleveland Cavaliers are the clear No. 1 team in the East. But who is No. 2? The list of hopefuls is decent-sized and if you ask Boston Celtics point guard Isaiah Thomas, his squad should be near the top of that list. ESPN.com’s Chris Forsberg has more:
Quiet, at least by last season’s All-Star standard, through the Boston Celtics’ first five games of the preseason, Isaiah Thomas put together a near-perfect first half on Monday night against the Brooklyn Nets and promptly declared himself ready for real basketball to start.
Thomas, who made all six shots he took while putting up 19 first-half points, passed time in the second half by excitedly cheering big moments for Boston’s youngest players, sitting in the front row with fans trying to get on the JumboTron, and grooving when “Gino Time” rolled toward the end of a breezy 120-99 triumph at TD Garden.
After displaying the sort of basket-attacking aggression that distinguished his play last season and after another excellent showing for Boston’s starting group, Thomas was asked to assess the prospects for the 2016-17 Celtics.
“We have a pretty good team — a team that can make some legitimate noise,” Thomas said. “And if we put it together and play the right way, we can make a lot happen this season. We don’t ever want to put a ceiling on it, but we have a really good team. I know that.”
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While Celtics coach Brad Stevens has stressed his team has a long way to go to get where it desires to be, the potential for this team has been on display throughout the preseason. With a toy chest of versatile guards, Stevens has experimented with multiple small-ball lineups and found success with many of them.
Like in the first quarter Monday, Stevens made Marcus Smart the first sub, replacing Amir Johnson. Boston zipped the ball around with three guards — Smart, Thomas, and Avery Bradley — as Jae Crowder shuffled to the forward spot alongside Horford. In the second quarter, Stevens came back with a three-guard lineup that had Thomas playing alongside newcomer Gerald Green (that tandem that had success two seasons ago in Phoenix) and Terry Rozier, a second-year guard who has made the most pronounced leap on the team and is ready for rotation minutes.
Rozier adds a combination of athleticism, ball-handling, shooting and, most notably, quickness to the floor. As Stevens offered after Monday’s game, “I’m a big fan of speed.”
Will the bite-sized chunks of positive play translate to the regular season? Thomas and his teammates seem to believe so. Many of Boston’s biggest concerns coming into the preseason — such as the departure of sixth man Evan Turner — have been eased by the play of Rozier, Smart and No. 3 pick Jaylen Brown (a player Boston selected with the Nets’ 2016 draft pick).
